An Essay About Holden Caulfield

I think I need to be put down. Like maybe do the thing they do in Canada where they choose to euthanize you instead of giving you healthcare ← Something Holden Caulfield would say, probably.

The Catcher in the Rye is a… Confusing book? Yeah. See, when I first heard about it, no one would tell me what it was about. I just heard the name over and over again. And then I got older, and it made even less sense. How was it a banned book and just another teen indie film and also, “Oh my God Don’t Mention Catcher in the Rye To Me”? Then I read it. And what people said about the book versus what the book actually is is so far out of left field it’s picking trees in another plot of land.

I mean what was going on half the time? It’s one of the most banned books in the country, it’s a bunch of gibberish, it’s one of the most important texts of our generation, it’s enough to kill John Lennon?? It’s an indescribable book about a spoiled teenager who thinks the world is phony while coming to grips with growing older (maybe that one’s true.)

And well, it’s actually pretty good. I would in fact call it overhyped. Like I would say it deserves an adequate amount of hype. It’s pretty good! I just think people oversell it. It’s not the communist manifesto, and I mean, Holden’s pretty messed up, but I think it’s pretty rude to say he’d kill John Lennon (I mean I just don’t think he would do that.)

So then. What is The Catcher in the Rye?

…Slightly complex with a straightforward narrative. but I really like it so I’m gonna talk about it!

Holden is deeply traumatized. I don’t think that’s very hard to say. His narrating style dissuades you from thinking he is when he talks very by-the-breeze. He is incredibly sardonic, judgemental, and rude, making comments on people’s looks and habits just because he can. But when you peel back the layers, you notice how… Scary, the aspects of his story are.

He handwaves all of these aspects and frequently lies to you about how they affect him, but the passing mentions are deeply disturbing. He recounts witnessing another student kill himself from the fifth story, describes how his body looked on the pavement and how gruesome it was. He brings up death constantly, writing about it for the most part, on accident. This could very easily be attributed to his dead brother, and yeah, having a dead younger brother who died when you were children is. Disquieting. Not easy. In fact, when the end of the book comes, there Holden is, begging Allie not to let him die.

I don’t think I have to spell it out that someone’s who’s mentally well. wouldn’t do that. Holden basically has a severe mental breakdown at the end of the book (and you can really see it coming if you read the book close enough.) JD Salinger himself pointed to the traumas of war when writing this story, and you know what? A story about an adolescent approaching adulthood slowly coming to terms with the horrors of grief, death of companions, and an apparent feeling of being cut off with the world? Searching for understanding while condemning the world? Yeah.

Holden is in constant search of companionship. Every chance he gets, he thinks about calling someone, his friend Jane Gallagher, an author he’s never met who “seems friendly”, and even people he doesn’t like, just for someone to talk to. After he leaves Pencey, he hires a prostitute just to talk to her, even asking that she doesn’t take her dress off.

The first taste of Holden’s loneliness really starts at Pencey. Not even the two people he talks to there really connect with him. When it comes to Stradlater and Ackley, it comes off they only really talk to Holden because he’s there. But it’s also almost the only companionship Holden really finds at Pencey, making them the closest thing he has to friends at the moment. And he’s not even very good at keeping them.

One of the best written relationships in the novel is his relationship with his little sister, Phoebe. It’s very loving and adoring, and I think humanizes Holden the most. She’s the most real thing to him. He spends pages talking about her: “You would love her.” As soon as he gets home, she immediately starts talking about school—And he listens. Fully pays attention to the conversation, rather than just having it for small talk.

And then loses it when she finds out why he’s home early.

Holden does a very-many stupid things across the novel. In fact, when he wakes up Phoebe, he plans to take more money from his parents after burning through the money he had at the beginning. Finding out he’s home practically drives Phoebe crazy. She’s furious.

He brushes it off, in a way that he genuinely believes It’s None of Her Concern. This is interesting to me about Holden Caulfield. It’s a very familiar response: his actions don’t involve others because they’re his actions. When other people are worried for him or mad at him, it’s not their problem because he faces the consequences for it. He doesn’t really understand what consequences are or what they might be, which is where most of the accusations of him being spoiled come from.  And you know what? Yeah. It makes for a really good use of the first-person narrative.

It’s not enough that Holden doesn’t understand consequences, he’s also. Just a bit of a mess otherwise. He’s a very emotional type. He loses his mind whenever he finds out Stradlater might’ve had sex with Jane Gallagher, a girl from his town he likes, and gets into a fight with Stradlater about it within seconds. Then goes into his neighbor’s room, still bloody, to get some company. He does a lot of crying too, bursts into tears at multiple points. He doesn’t mention it much after or describe it in the way a third-person structure would, but it’s also hard not to notice. As soon as he starts to lose the fight with Stradlater, he’s in tears. He’s in tears when the prostitute’s pimp threatens him, and pretty much through most of the story. I think noticing the crying is where it changes the perspective of the novel for me.

Edit after the fact, Allie is dead. Allie is Holden’s dead younger brother. It’s important to note how close in age Allie and Holden are, while Holden is six years older than his little sister, Allie was eleven when he died making him eleven when he died. Like.. The amount of stuff to cover with that is mental. To be two years older than your brother and spend eleven years with him to end up with leukemia—and then miss the funeral. There’s no analysis there, that’s just. Sombering. He calls out to him at the end of the novel. Jesus Christ.

Holden tells you absolutely nothing about his mental health, but it’s. Depressing? Fascinating? To realize what’s going on? He never really thinks too hard about it, so it’s more of you putting those pieces together. Or more of me putting those pieces together because I wrote this goddamn neverending thing.

The word count is at almost 1400. and I’m not done discussing it. The modern interpretation of The Catcher in the Rye is gonna put ME in a sanatorium. How did it kill three people? How did it nearly kill Ronald Reagan? You wanna hear the baseball glove? The carousel? I’m still not done!! How am I still not done?!

No wonder there’s so many interpretations of this book. No wonder. Maybe the only solution to this problem is to read the book yourself. Or don’t. Or finish the book if you only got through half of it. I don’t know. 1400 words..